No Rest for the Weary
by Spockologist
Summary: Five times Shiro couldn't sleep and the one time he did. Rated K for angst. Non Slash.
1. Chapter 1

_*Can't believe I'm jumping back into the fanfic world. Voltron bit my fangirl heart hard. I'm pretty rusty with fanfiction so any discrepancies are mine and I apologize. I'm always a sucker for angst and I hope you are too._

 _Enjoy,_

 _Spockologist_

His room is cool and dark. The faint light emanating from the power outlet in the corner is the only thing grounding him in reality. As he watches, the pure Altean glow starts to ebb and flow, growing to a menacing purple around the edges. Shiro inhales sharply and the color again fades to the innocent white light.

He has come to loathe the night. As a child, he had loved to look up at the stars and imagine his place amongst them. Now, he has seen the darkness in their depths. The deception behind the tranquil starry sky.

There is no such thing as a peaceful, silent night. Not anymore.

Alone in his room with no earthly provisions or keepsakes to distract him, the memories of the Galra come back to him. He hears Haggar's laugh, the marching of the droids. The quiet hum of the sleeping ship becomes a roar and he does his best not to scream along with it.

Shiro is not the man he was before the Kerberos mission. He is not the star struck cadet from his Garrison days. He is a monster. Their _champion._ A mutated thing that the Galra used and cast aside. He hates the constant reminder of their influence in his arm. He can feel the energy pulsing through his fingertips. It's a hungry sort of power, always begging for him to give in and lose control.

Control is the one thing he has left.

The scurrying of the mice past his door send him bolting upright. Part of him wishes they would climb into his room from the air vents. The other part of him wishes to be alone. He is the team leader and leaders don't show weakness. How could he instill faith in Keith or Pidge if they saw him breaking down? No, this was a burden best carried alone.

Shiro's human hand runs through his hair. These past few months have aged him. It's not just the white hair, though heaven knows he hates looking in a mirror, it's the emotional toll of things. The weight of responsibility he feels towards everyone and everything. Physically, he's dealt with worse- he lost an arm, didn't he? But the stress of caring for everyone, of being a paladin when he can barely be himself is what he finds most difficult to deal with.

It's easy to cast these fears aside during the day when he's distracted by Lance's antics or the latest addition to the coalition. But at night, alone in the dark with his thoughts and the silence,

He rarely sleeps.


	2. Chapter 2

It had been a particularly rough day for all of them. Keith was in one of his moods and Lance had taken the opportunity to be more than provoking during their morning training exercises. Separating two hot headed boys and acting like the mature adult he certainly didn't feel like was more than a full-time job. It was at times like these that Shiro realized the extent of the age gap between himself the younger paladins. Had he known that his garrison career would have landed him in charge of four young cadets and the fate of the entire universe, he most likely would have taken up his uncle's offer to practice law with him in Tokyo.

The thought him in a starched white collar sitting in some high-rise office building made Shiro's face twitched in what resembled a half smile. His life certainly would have been different had he chosen a different path. But a life that so many would consider normal had never appealed to him. Shiro had been obsessed with the Galaxy Garrison ever since the day a garrison officer had visited his second-grade class. Thoughts of exploring the unknown and pushing his limits had fueled him through the rest of his primary education. People called him dedicated, his friends called him fanatical. But the stars had called to him. The opportunity to be an exploration pilot encountering the strange ways of the universe had gripped him tightly and refused to let go. On days when things were less than ideal, it took little more than a glance upwards to remind him of what had once been his truest passion. It was preserving the beauty of the unexplored that took priority over all else.

And that preservation was taking its toll. Shiro ran a hand through his white hair and thought of Lance's offer to dye it black for him. While his changing hair color was merely cosmetic, the emotional impact of it hit harder than he would have liked. It was easier for him to joke about his aging appearance than to focus on his lack of a limb. That Galra thing attached to his body was not his. It was a reminder of things he'd rather not be reminded of and so the obsession with his hair was born. He could laugh about his ruined good look with good graces, but never, ever about the arm.

It was the arm that was bothering him this evening. After the Castle of Lions had quieted for the night, Shiro had slipped into the locker rooms for a shower. He preferred letting no one see the mess of scars that crossed his chest and wound down his shoulders to trace his lower back. Lance joked that it was to save them all from swooning or comparing sizes, and Shiro played along well, but as the water poured over his head, the reality of how damaged he really was pooled in his chest like the water gathering at his feet.

Broken. That's what he felt. Barely pieced together by an alien technology he could scarcely comprehend. Out of all the scars, which ones were battle born? How many had been inflicted by Galra medical technicians, curious to see the color blood a wounded human man would bleed?

And that was only counting what was visible. It was the wounds inside that were the closest ones to festering. The fetid pool within his chest rose towards his throat and his fist slammed against the shower wall in an attempt to beat it back down to its lurking depths.

Shiro was drowning. Drowning yet responsible for the lives of those still swimming around him. The sensation of water on his skin became too much and he shut off the water with more force than necessary. He dressed and toweled his hair quickly, intent to get away but away from what and where he had yet to figure out.

Once out in the quiet of the Castle's spacious halls, the ragged breaths he didn't know he'd been gasping slowed. His heart rate began to drop and he took a moment to inhale. It was impossible to tell the hour, but he knew it was late. The rest of the Castle's inhabitants would be asleep, all that is except one.

"Katie?" Shiro knocked softly, feeling both foolish and desperate. He didn't want to be alone. Alone with his thoughts, with his responsibilities, with his nightmares.

Alone with himself.

The automatic door slid open and Pidge blinked up at him over the brightness of her laptop screen. "Shiro? Everything ok?"

"Yeah...yeah." Shiro answered with more confidence than he felt. "I just couldn't sleep. What are you up to?"

Pidge pushed a pile of books out of the way and motioned for him to sit down. "I'm working on programing a new fighting sequence into the practice robots. Keith mentioned wanting something more challenging, but in reality, I think he's planning to unleash it on Lance."

Shiro smiled in response and leaned back on his hands. "I'd have to agree with you."

"You sure everything's ok?" Pidge asked again.

He nodded, managing to feel both regret for coming and comfort at the same time. Pidge took that as an answer and launched into a heady explanation of algorithms and her latest breakthrough on hacking into Galra security. Shiro felt himself half listening as she ranted and it wasn't until a word caught his attention did his speak.

"Wait, what? Repeat that."

"Your arm." Pidge pushed her glasses up her nose, showing faint annoyance on her rant being derailed. "It's glowing."

Shiro jerked and glanced down to see the ugly purple hue creeping towards his shoulder. He must have gasped because Pidge jumped in surprise. "Does it hurt?"

"It-" Shiro doubled over as searing pain scorched through his body. His vision went black and Hagar's laugh filled his head as he felt his body hit the floor. Pidge was yelling something and he failed to understand her through the pain.

And just like that it was over. Shiro was staring up at Pidge's large eyes, one hand on the door as if she was about to run and get the others. He inhaled sharply as heat flooded his cheeks and he scrambled to his feet.

"I'm sorry. I'm..."

"Are you ok?" Her eyes were huge. "What happened?"

He'd lost control. That's what had happened. And he'd let his youngest cadet see him do it.

"Something that shouldn't have happened." He staggered towards the door. "Please don't tell anyone. I'm fine. Don't tell the others."

"But-

He slammed the door on his way out.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey everyone,**

 **Thank you to everyone who has read/reviewed so far! I really appreciate it.**

The blood had begun to dry. Its metallic scent clung to the inside of his nostrils and settled against his skin in flakes. The sleeve of his right arm was stiff with dried blood and as Shiro lifted his hand to check the wound, a fresh stream of bright red flowed down to his wrist and dripped off his fingers.

He'd already lost feeling in the limb. It was a miracle his arm hadn't been torn clean off in the arena. He could remember little after the ax had come down on him. He had no idea if he'd won or lost. But as the Galra guards had dragged him from the bloodied sand, he'd heard himself screaming. An inhuman, feral sound as his vision repeatedly blacked out every time his arm was touched.

"He'll bleed out." One of the guards had grumbled. "He's as good as dead."

"We need him alive." Shiro recognized the voice of one of the medics that treated the arena fighter's minor injuries. "Make sure he lasts the night."

The prison door had opened long enough to toss him inside. Shiro stumbled to his knees, his voice cracking with pain and fear. "Please-

"We'll remove the arm in the morning." Came the curt response as the door shut in his face.

He'd been too numb to process their words until the pain from the injury had settled into a constant throb. The gash was deep, he could see the muscles were irreparably severed. Their words echoed in his mind like the mourning bells of a cathedral: _Remove the arm… remove the arm…remove the arm._

Shiro tried desperately to get his fingers to twitch, to respond. His head was groggy from the loss of blood and he cursed in frustration as his hand refused to obey the instructions his mind was shouting. A shift outside the door told him the guards had come to check on him again and he straightened, trying to look defiant despite the terror throbbing in his skull.

The slit in the door opened and he made eye contact with the deep yellow eyes of the guard. The guard grunted in response and shut the panel. "He's still fighting. That Champion's a tough one."

Shiro slumped back against the wall, fighting tears. He'd lost his family, his friends, and his planet.

In the morning he would lose a piece of himself.


End file.
